May 2014 - Snapshots

[Mystic2]

May Snapshot Schedule

All Events begin at 9:30pm Eastern time in SEA II every Wednesday night.
All are welcome to attend. No registration, sign up or squad affiliation needed. Simply show up, read the Arena Message, choose a side and plane then get ready to fight!

May 07 14   68Jr   Frankfurt
The B-17 was the most enjoyable aircraft I ever flew. I arrived in the UK an experienced B-17 pilot and used the B-17 on every kind of Scouting Force job: weather recon, photo recon, dropping lifeboats, air and sea rescue. At Wormingfold the P-51 Mustang pilots used to do peel ups great swoops over the runway- before landing, so we did the same in a B-17 until the CO put a stop to it, saying it would be his butt if some bigwheel saw us landing like that.I flew 30 missions with the 833rd Bomb Squadron, 486th Bomb Group and in that time I lost all my officers to enemy action by the 6th mission.

Quoted from Dave Mullen; The Bomber War, by Robin Neillands.

Come join the fun, blood and flying as the Allies and thier famous B-17 bombers attack an airfield, city complex and radar factory.


May 14 14   68Raptor   Midway
On the morning of June 4th Lieutenant Commander Clarence W. McClusky led over sixty aircraft from the U.S.S. Enterprise to seek out Nagumo's carriers. The Hornet and the Yorktown also committed aircraft in search of the enemy task groups. The Hornets group were the first to spot the enemy. Torpedo bombers attacked, but were wiped out. Not a single torpedo scored a hit and 35 of the 41 one planes that attacked were shot down by the accurate anti-aircraft fire or by the Zeros who were also defending.

Shortly after the torpedo run the SBDs from the Hornet and Yorktown attacked the Kaga. McClusky divided his SBDs into two formations and dove on the Soryu and the Akagi. Thankfully for the Americans they had clear skies because the Zeros had gone to the deck after the torpedo bombers. By late morning of June 5th all four of the IJN carriers had been sunk along with several other ships.

This Snapshot will give players a taste of Midway and a chance to change the outcome



May 21 14   Mojo/68Raptor   Pushing Back
Operation Citadel was aimed at eliminating the Red Army at Kursk. The town itself was of minor significance; it was chosen because it was situated in a bulge between the fronts of Field Marshal Erich von Manstein's Army Group South and Field Marshal Hans Gunther von Kluge's Army Group Center.
The German attack began on July 5 and moved steadily for four days before stiff resistance stopped it. The Russians counterattacked and began to reverse the German gains. Suddenly, Hitler called off Citadel to divert troops to meet the Allied forces that had just landed in Sicily.
What made the defeat particularly damaging to the German war effort was the loss of equipment. The fight for Kursk involved the largest tank battle in history, a total of 6,000 tanks, and the German loss of approximately 3,000 was devastating because new ones were not manufactured quickly enough to replace them. The air battle was equally fierce, with 4,000 aircraft in combat. The Germans bore the brunt, losing nearly 1,400.
The Russians were not about to give the Germans a break. On August 3, 1943, the Red Army attacked Kursk and overwhelmed the troops that had been on the attack a month earlier. The Germans were on the run. Ignoring pleas for reinforcements, Hitler instead ordered the creation of a fortified line, the East Wall  not to give his troops a place to fall back to and hold, but rather to prevent a retreat. German forces never again threatened Moscow and, from that point on, the Russians seized the initiative and did not let up until reaching Berlin.

Write up taken from  http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/ww2/Citadel.html
In this event we will re-create what might have been one of several sorties of the Russian counter offensives attacking the withdrawing Germans at the end of Operation Citadel.



May 28 14   68Jr   Operation Corkscrew
In June of 1943 the NASAF (Northwest African Strategic Air Force) commanded by Maj. Gen. Jimmy Doolittle, pounded the Island defenses of Pantelleria into submission. Every defensive position on the Island came under a relentless bombing attack. By the time the British assault troops came ashore to forcibly capture the island the white flag of surrender was already waving. This SNAPSHOT will reenact one such typical air bombardment mission into the Island of Pantelleria